Tim Gunn Hasn

Tim Gunn isn’t afraid to be candid about his private life, including his much-discussed commitment to celibacy.

Appearing on Monday’s episode of Chelsea Handler’s “Dear Chelsea” podcast, the former “Project Runway” mentor shared that he has been celibate for a total of 43 years after a cheating ex broke his heart in 1982.

“I had a very serious nine-year relationship in Washington, D.C.,” Gunn said. “I loved this person deeply and would have done anything for him.”

The 72-year-old went on to remember “the night it all ended,” including a brutal conversation that began while the two men were in bed, watching an episode of “M*A*S*H” together.

“He told me, ‘I don’t have patience with you anymore. I want you to leave,'” he explained. “I had my own apartment, but I had been living with him for years and I left him… I had to push through because I was hyperventilating. I was beside myself with self-flagellation and self-pity, and it was horrible.”

Gunn did not reveal his ex’s identity, other than to note that he had been a co-worker at the time, meaning they would surely see each other again.

“One of the things he told me that night was that he had been sleeping through almost everything that was going on and that I had been loyal and faithful to him,” she said. “He was the only person I had ever been with.”

Kevin Mazur via Getty Images

Gunn’s split came with the advent of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and his newfound knowledge of his ex’s sexual history soon filled him with “unbridled rage.”

“I thought he could have sentenced me to death,” he said. And although he never tested positive for HIV, the experience apparently discouraged him from pursuing new relationships: “Every time I was tempted to get involved in something that might get serious with someone, this whole thing would come back like Niagara Falls, and it would just kill my desire.”

Gunn, who recently reteamed with his “Project Runway” co-star Heidi Klum on the Amazon Prime Video series “Making the Cut,” addressed his celibacy in his 2010 book, “Gunn’s Golden Rules,” emphasizing that it was a conscious lifestyle decision.

“Do I feel like less of a person because of it? No, not even remotely,” she said on a 2012 episode of ABC’s “The Revolution,” a now-defunct health and lifestyle show. “It’s not like it’s a barren forest.”

Other celebrities who have recently opened up about choosing a celibate lifestyle include musician Lenny Kravitz, who said in 2024 that he had not had sex in nine years, and actress Julia News, who cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 repeal of abortion rights as her motivation for abstaining. As for her sex life with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, during their high-profile 2022 romance, News would later tell The New York Times that “there was none.”

Elsewhere in his “Dear Chelsea” talk, Gunn admitted that being celibate and living alone “was a little adjustment,” but that he “wouldn’t have it any other way.” In fact, he now believes his lifestyle prepared him for the long period of self-isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.

“I’m probably one of the few people who really loved it,” he joked.

Listen to Tim Gunn’s “Dear Chelsea” interview here. His comments about his celibacy begin around the 8:09 mark.